Portrait of Frida Cano (E Line)

by Gregg Chadwick 

For the Metro project "We Are…Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists", I painted a portrait of artist, writer, and curator Frida Cano. 

Like a steel river, Metro’s E Line connects arts institutions across Los Angeles County. Running from 7th Street in Downtown L.A. to Santa Monica, the E train begins just down Bunker Hill from LA MOCA and the Broad Museum and passes by numerous art cultural centers from the California African-American Museum, to the art gallery districts in West Adams and Culver City, to the Sawtelle Corridor, to Bergamot Station, to the 18th Street Arts Center, ending a few miles from the Ocean Park neighborhood in Santa Monica that inspired artists from Richard Diebenkorn to John Baldessari. 

Frida Cano lives in Echo Park and often travels on the E Line to her art curatorial position in Santa Monica. Frida lives and breathes the concerns of our times. She writes,” As an emerging Mexican artist and curator, focused on the reevaluation of history and culture through Latin American perspectives, it has been my concern to truly communicate the social issues of our times.” Frida rides the train and sees the world reflected in the glass of the E Line as she travels across L.A. Frida believes that art curators, in tandem with artists and critics, can bring circulating and hidden ideas to light. This zeitgeist informed my portrait of Frida Cano, pictured thinking as she waits for the E train. 

"We Are...Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists" on view in the Union Station Passageway Art Gallery and in an expanded online gallery celebrates diversity and the community of transit riders. We Are... launches more upcoming programs in 2022 across multiple formats and sites ranging from including buses, trains and stations in Los Angeles County. The program will include even a special Metro Art Bus! Plus, the exhibit will be accompanied by all-ages community engagement programs, including tours, talks, and more. This multi-site exhibition and series of events is presented by Metro Art in collaboration with Metro’s Office of Civil Rights, Racial Equity & Inclusion and Communications departments. #Art #Trains #Metro #LosAngeles #GreggChadwick 

 See more at https://art.metro.net/artworks/exhibitions/weare/

Official We Are... Call to Action – IG/FB/Twitter: We Are... a community of riders. Join in Metro’s portrait exhibition! Tag a selfie #SomosWeAre and share your journey.

WE ARE… PORTRAITS OF METRO RIDERS BY LOCAL ARTISTS

PASSAGEWAY ART GALLERY EXHIBIT AT UNION STATION NOW OPEN

Metro riders are invited to contribute selfies and personal stories of transit using the hashtag #SomosWeAre

Celebrating the diversity of Los Angeles County and the community of transit riders, We Are…Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists is an exhibition featuring portraits presented throughout the Metro system and online. Each rider portrait has a story that is personal and universal, intimate and immediate— a single story among the many stories of 840,000 daily riders on Metro, and each told by an artist with ties to neighborhoods served by Metro.

The We Are… exhibition displays 35 new artworks in the Union Station Passageway Art Gallery along with additional artworks in an expanded online gallery.

To view all images in the online We Are gallery, click here.

Featured artists in the Passageway Art Gallery are Aiseborn, Eric Almanza, Kristina Ambriz, Jazmine Atienza, Susu Attar, Christen Austin, Moses X. Ball, Daniel Barajas, Chelle Barbour, April Bey, Javier Carrillo, Carolyn Castaño, Gregg Chadwick, Sean Cheetham, Cat Ferraz, Carla Jay Harris, Alepsis Hernández, Bodeck Luna Hernandez, Lanise Howard, Bryan Ida, Sheila Karbassian, Kaylynn Kim, Miles Lewis, José M. Loza, Cody Lusby, Rosalind McGary, Samuel Pace, Maria Piñeres, Adele Renault, LP Ǽkili Ross, Carlos Spivey, Edwin Ushiro, Dave Van Patten, J Michael Walker, Angela Willcocks.